The Bush Doctrine is bold and risky – but ultimately right. As Bush said numerous times between 2001 and 2004 – usually on deaf media ears – you cannot wait until threats are imminent. By this he meant that terrorists and fascists usually don't write love letters to their victims identifying the time and place of the next tragic, murderous rampage. They usually just kill and talk later. In a compressed world of lethal weapons of all sizes and shapes, and with inter-continental logistics capability available to even the poorest of states, waiting around until murder strikes is simply an abdication of responsibility and ensures carnage.

The Bush Doctrine then is premised on pre-emptive strikes, an assertion of national privilege and security, and the belief that forcing democratic change onto the fascist regimes in the Islamic world, is the best hope for long term international peace. He is right. Every other policy tried by conservatives and liberals alike in the past 50 years, regarding Islam, has failed.

Realism and balance of power politics [play Iraq off against Iran for example], failed. There are many who whine that the US created Hussein or the Taliban for instance, in the American zeal to counter Russian Communism. Liberal internationalism in the guise of the UN, or endless diplomatic talking shops, have been useless endeavours, never once stopping Islamic terror and violence [see Israel as an example]. Appeasement and isolationism, as witnessed by Reagan's withdrawal from Lebanon in 1983 after hundreds of US marines were killed by Hizbollah over a 6 month period involving multiple attacks; or Clinton's cowardly conduct in Somalia and East Africa, only emboldened the enemy.

So what else is left? Not much. You can't pull up the drawbridge and hide behind porous national borders. Neither can you outsource your foreign policy [as the US State department does] to the Europeans or the UN. Neither is trustworthy. With only a few countries possessing any military with power projection capability[France, Israel and the UK are the others]; the US is forced into unilateral action.

Invading and draining the swamp of Iraq is the right policy. If the US had used proper military force and fought the Iraq war to win, Iraq today would be stable. At least after 3 years they finally got the right ideas and the right generals to do what should have been done from day one. WMD has been found [along with sales of Hussein's stock identified, going to the Russians, various Arab states and Syria]. Iraqi terror financing has been halted. Iraq now has a government that is our ally. And radical Islam has most likely lost 60.000 men killed and scores more wounded. Iraq is a colossal defeat for the Islamists.

Along with the occupation of Afghanistan some notable things have happened. Iran is now encircled making an invasion certainly easier and quicker. The 'winds of change' are slowing blowing throughout the Middle East. The Arabs and Muslims now comprehend that the US is in the region to stay – and to reform. This significant fact means that further societal, cultural and economic changes will surely follow. The fight against Islam has been taken to the heartland of the Arab cult. The pschological effects on Islamic populations, of winning in Iraq and Afghanistan and challenging Iran directly, will be enormous.

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